Stories

To open the March issue of the Civic Science Series, Monica Dus, an Associate Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology​ at the University of Michigan, reflects on lessons from her experiences as a White House Fellow and a member of the Vision for American Science & Technology (VAST) task force, developing a vision for how science and technology can achieve their potential to serve society.  

“But Monica, why are you doing this?” As I packed my bags in the summer of 2023 to spend a year in Washington, D.C., many friends, colleagues, and even my parents asked the same questions. “Are you sure it’s okay to leave your lab for a year? It’s going well; you just got tenure…”  

I applied to the White House Fellowship for the same reason that brought me to science decades before: to understand. This time, it wasn’t about understanding how interactions between genes and environment shape complex behaviors or how nutrients signal to our genes—questions that had fascinated me as a young scientist and that my lab had been studying since 2015. It was about understanding the place of science—in society, America, and our lives. While I didn’t know if and how I would find these answers in D.C., I knew I would not find them within the familiar confines of academia. I had already looked there and beyond in my many projects on science communication and public engagement.  

The scientific method requires stepping into new, uncomfortable environments, engaging with possibilities well beyond our initial imagination, and accepting that they may challenge and reshape our thinking. Ultimately, that is why I went to D.C.: to experience science’s place today—fully, directly, and without the safety of distance. It was intense, and many times it hurt. It was also exhilarating and magical. And it did help me understand.  

It also prepared me to “serve in my lab coat” now that I’ve gone back to my research. Just a few weeks after moving back home, I opened an email from the American Association for the Advancement of Science asking me to join the Vision for American Science & Technology (VAST) task force. The goal of the task force—composed of more than 70 people from government, academia, philanthropy, and industry—is to look beyond the next five years and toward the next five decades with urgency and direction to envision a national strategy to realign and strengthen the science and technology enterprise.

The task force’s vision, developed through dozens and dozens of conversations with people in and outside the task force, was recently released. It outlines avenues for action, including unleashing the power of science by breaking down barriers, building an adaptable workforce, and driving breakthroughs through commitments to fundamental discovery research, applied research, and research infrastructure. We, the American people, are the ultimate stakeholders: beneficiaries of a revitalized science and technology system, who also have an active role in unleashing its potential. 

Here are three lessons I’ve taken away from my year of service:  

The weight of structure: Just as time burdens biological organisms with vestigial traits, broken genes, and deleterious mutations, it also burdens organizations, weighing them down with structural and operational inertia, freezing their flexibility. But I also learned that the weight of these structures exists for a reason. There is a kind of “Hippocratic oath” of bureaucracy, where things move slowly to avoid breaking, to prevent unintended harm. That weight creates stability. Of course, moving too slowly can also harm people. It can stifle innovation and leave problems unaddressed. It prevents, too often, real and necessary change from happening.  

Values and perspectives: The 15 White House Fellows in our class had vastly different backgrounds—soldiers, pilots, sailors, lawyers, social workers, police, physicians, and politicians—and they challenged me to see through other lenses. They showed me that there are many ways to perceive the world, define value, and approach problem-solving, each shaped by a different set of lived experiences, constraints, and responsibilities. I also brought science to them—not scientific explanations, but the scientific mindset, curiosity, rigor, process, and acceptance of uncertainty. And they taught me something deeply personal: My value is more than my analytical mind, publications, and accolades. I had neglected, or been strongly encouraged to set aside, many aspects of myself, because they were not traditionally valued in my world. And yet, in this new environment and to these new people, they mattered. I left for Washington, D.C. as a scientist and returned as a more complete version of myself. 

Service and leadership: I spent time in the Pentagon, working alongside Carlos Del Toro, the 78th Secretary of the Navy, and a team of skilled, committed, and driven service members and civic servants. They taught me the value of unity of purpose: the critical importance of having a mission that ties people together in service of something bigger than themselves. For years, I had been singularly focused on data and analysis, believing that if we got the right information, answer, and model, progress would follow. But I learned that knowledge alone is never enough. Of course, data and analysis matter. But they only have a real impact when people feel part of something bigger, when they serve together toward a shared goal. And that is because together, we find the courage to act. This requires leadership. Not leadership that is tied to an administrative position, but the kind that is a character trait—one that connects vision, strategy, and tactics to working together with people. 

Science and technology are not just as a collection of specialized fields that advance discovery; they are engines of national power, forces that shape the economy, military, industry, diplomacy, geopolitics, and the very trajectory of our future. Science and technology are truly at a crossroads. We are disconnected: from the public, from decision-making, from political power, from each other, and in a sense, from ourselves—from our shared mission and from the governance and future of our own enterprise. 

The challenge ahead isn’t just about investing in or updating science policies and structures. It is also about realigning and integrating science, the culture of science, and ourselves as scientists, with society, the nation, and the world. 

No one expects this to be easy; many things will be required to succeed. But the past year of service has taught me that at least three are essential: unity of effort, teamwork, and leadership. Not to move fast and break things or to preserve stability so rigidly that progress slows to a cosmic scale—but to move together, with bold purpose, courage, and steady intent to build a future where science is deeply part of the wider world, serving it and helping guide it forward. Science is service, too. 

Monica Dus is an Associate Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology​ at the University of Michigan and a 2016 Rita Allen Foundation Scholar.